silk lines
by readingrainbows
Summary: She's drowning silently under glitzy lights and important nights and she falls halfway in love with him before she has the chance to stop herself. – Beck/Jade


.

_An AU I struggled with for a good twelve and a half years in which Jade has severe rich girl problems._

_For Madeline, to whom I owe a birthday gift, a good fic, a new bottle of ginger hair dye and so much more._

_Keep your head above water, angel face._

.

There is pretense, Jade figures, in these kinds of things.

She stares listlessly at her reflection in the full length mirror: a strapless, deeply maroon bodice woven sinfully tight against her chest and then tapered like a second skin to the deep indentations of her waist, fabric spilling elegantly from there all the way down to the floor in silky folds, tall black heels and dark hair falling in perfect spirals across her shoulder blades.

She is the epitome of beauty, poise and splendor: all flawless skin and plunging necklines and it makes her slightly ill.

On her massive dressing table spilling over with lavish foundation brushes and sea-glass perfume bottles, her phone buzzes mutely, a silent reminder of where she must be.

Jade scowls at it, briefly wishes she could destroy the thing, impale it with one of her razor sharp diamond studs so it would stop buzzing forever before she turns back to the mirror.

She takes a last glance, a long glance, acknowledges the thing that bothers her most.

The cellphone keeps vibrating, thrumming loudly against the deep, ancient wood of her dressing table and Jade snaps it up, along with a leather clutch and her car keys.

She glances at the caller id, sneers, and tosses the phone onto the floor. It shatters, Jade is sure, but she doesn't look back as she exits her bedroom and descends the marble staircase. She catches her reflection again, in one of the decorative mirrors lining the walls, and it makes her stomach churn in disgust as she sweeps out the front door.

She looks like her mother.

* * *

It's a very large hotel; maybe the size of three of her summerhouses combined and Jade is not impressed. She tosses her keys to the valet, a curly-headed boy with thick black frames and watches as he fumbles clumsily for them.

Jade rolls her eyes at his antics, turns and walks up the winding pathway leading to the entrance. Her heels click sharply against the concrete below her, _clack-clack-clack_ in the mostly silent night and she counts the echoes like the ways she hates herself.

There is a tall, tuxedoed man standing before the door, presumably posted there to keep vermin out, keep old money in, and he inclines his head respectfully when he sees her, pulls the door open and holds it out for her to walk through.

Inside there is soft, lilting music and the hushed tinkle of refined laughter. There are people everywhere, lining the walls and circling the dance floor, although not too many of them—their kind of wealth is elite, and very few in the world would ever reach even half the riches the people in this room make in a year.

She eyes them all distastefully from the doorway.

They look hazy, Jade thinks, despite her 20/20 vision they look faded and muddled, falsely blushing and exaggeratedly shiny, like a photograph that's been filtered and over-airbrushed. Scanning the room makes her feel faintly like she's flipping through a magazine: glossy pages and ads for overpriced perfumes, and she feels a swoop of disgust resonate deep within her belly when she realizes that as soon as she properly joins the soiree, she would be considered one of them.

There are too many obscenely affluent old men shuffling around in finely pressed Armani suits and even more of their beautiful, cheating wives strapped loosely to their arms.

Jade would know. Her mother was one of them.

She spots her in the center of the room surrounded by several smiling colleagues. People have always been drawn to her mother, sickeningly so; she exuded a boundless confidence and cheery grace that made people want to flock around her listen. Jade is her exact opposite in that respect and many others.

She is a vision dripping in diamonds, thick dark hair twined gracefully to the crown of her head and lips a deep red; a smile like she's tucking in a secret. She twists slightly and scans the room, obviously looking for her daughter and raises an artfully plucked eyebrow when she spots her just standing near the doorway. She motions to Jade with a flick of long, thin fingers, and Jade takes a deep breath in before sulking over.

"I've been calling you," is the first thing her mother says, and although she mutters it out of the corner of her mouth and keeps an upbeat smile on her face, her pristine nails claw into the delicate skin of Jade's forearm, "You were supposed to be here an hour ago."

"I got held up," Jade hisses, not bothering to keep her own voice down and breaking away from her mother's grasp. She reaches out, plucks a champagne flute from a passing waiter and takes a large swallow, "I'm here now, god."

Her mother glares at her momentarily, only a very slight narrowing of her eyes to signal any irritation at all before her skin smooths out again and she lets it pass. She clears her throat prettily and raises a sweeping hand at the people surrounding them. "You remember my friends?"

Jade sighs, drawn out and long-suffering. She holds out her hand and makes small talk with these people her parents know, these glittery pedantic men and women who ask her over and over which university she's attending, what boy she's dating, if she's ready to take over her mother's company.

Jade answers the questions with short chipped responses, and even then, only because she can feel her parents watching her.

"Decisiveness is key, of course," a plump man with greying hair booms at her. He folds his arms across his ample chest and grins lecherously at her mother, "Isn't that right, Mrs. West?"

Jade rolls her eyes, ignoring her mother's charismatic reply and sweeping her eyes across the room, frowning slightly when she spots one of the vested waiters a few feet away.

There is something in the set of his shoulders, the sweep of his brow bone, the casual way he holds himself, loose and easy; an elegantly slouched posture like he spends too much of his time leaning against things. There is something familiar there, hazy and muggy like a half-remembered dream and Jade thinks she may have seen the tilt of his lips somewhere before.

He approaches her group, holds out a large silver tray of hors d'oeuvres, and the men gathered around her take a few salmon puffs, popping them cleanly into their mouths.

The boy catches her eye then, smiles very slightly and holds out the tray to her in particular, offering. Jade is next to positive she's seen him before.

They may have gone to high school together, she thinks.

She might have even kissed him once, although she can't be sure. It was a very long time ago.

She shakes her head at his offering, but continues to stare, even as he shrugs his shoulders and throws her half a smile, slouches off to the edges of the vast hall.

"They should really have a policy about waiters who look like that," One of her mother's friends whispers to the group after the boy is a few feet away, "He looks like he knows how to pick a pocket."

"Mix-breeded probably," murmurs another, standing to Jade's left and sipping delicately on a clear martini, "I'll bet he's doing this as a community service job after hot-wiring a car or something."

"They all look _dirty_," The first woman answers back, shifting closer and squinting at the slouched boy from her peripheral, "I mean they're serving the best in the county, they should at least take more pride in their appearance."

Jade doesn't realize how badly her hands are shaking until she feels a slosh of liquid slop over her hands and jerks, shaking the champagne off her palm. "Oh my," says the same woman good-naturedly, turning to smile at Jade and offering her a tissue from her beaded Lulu clutch, "We scared the poor dear. Don't worry sweetheart, those people can't do anything to you in here."

Jade can hardly believe her ears. She stares for a moment at that woman before her, maybe in her mid-forties with any greying hairs finely concealed and plumped lips that speak of years and years of enhancements and cosmetic surgeries.

This is how the world is divided, Jade realizes with a sudden jolt: those people and these people. And Jade West, with no idea which side of the spectrum she's supposed to be on.

"Jade," her mother calls softly, and when she looks up to meet eyes so eerily similar to her own, she is not surprised to see the warning reflected in them. "You should meet Mr. Harris's son, Jade. I'm sure the two of you would get along very well."

There is a steely edge to her mother's voice, one that warns Jade that she had seen the way her daughter interacted with the shaggy-haired waiter, had seen her daughter's reaction to the words of her friends and did not like it one bit.

Jade glares at her mother, even as she glides Jade long to shake hands with an admittedly good-looking young man.

"Andre," he says suavely, taking her hand in both of his and drawing her closer, "It's a pleasure to meet you." His eyes are big and sincere, his skin is flawless. Another time, another place, a whole other lifetime and Jade may have wanted to know the secrets shrouded in his heavily-lidded eyes. Behind him her mother smiles approvingly, obviously thinking them a good match. That's all it takes to make Jade hate him.

"I have to use the bathroom." Jade gripes, releasing Andre's hand and stepping away from the group.

"Hurry back," her mother calls delicately, and to anyone else it would be just phrase, but Jade knows her, and she understands an order when she hears one.

Not that she's ever been one to follow through very well.

Jade keeps her back regally straight as she walks around those polished people, slightly pink-cheeked from too much champagne.

She passes a long hall, obviously leading to restrooms, but she sweeps by without more than a glance. She doesn't know exactly where she's going or what she'll do, but the wide walls surrounding the room feel as if they're closing in on her, the fact that she can walk smoothly around everyone here—such a large, large ballroom for so few people makes her suffocated, congested, unable to breathe.

She comes to the end of a stairwell and looks around, gasping for air. Vaguely she realizes she's being slightly dramatic, but the bodice of her dress feels too tight and the emeralds lining her striking collarbone feel as though they will choke her alive.

Jade blinks across the hall, to a closed door with a thick handle and a sign that clearly reads _for employees only_. The plaque above that depicts a black and white stick figure climbing upwards on a two dimensional ladder and Jade suddenly understand that this is a door that would lead to the roof.

_Yes_, she thinks as everything comes sharply into focus, all the ambiguity from the gala just rushing away, _I need to get up on the roof_.

She hardly thinks twice on it.

Five long strides and door slam later, Jade is stumbling her way up a terribly slippery silver ladder leading up to the roof of hotel.

The fact that her mother would very likely go into cardiac arrest if she'd ever witnessed her daughter the way she was now only made Jade climb that much faster.

* * *

Thirty minutes later and Jade still could not will herself to head back down to the party. The weather was cool for May, and being twenty floors off the ground certainly helped to clear her head. Jade wanted to stay up there for the rest of the night, for the rest of her life even.

What could be better, is all she could think, than the gentle wind and clear quietness of this night, the blackness that surrounded her so completely, nearly swallowing her whole. The aloneness, something she'd always appreciated but was grateful for more than ever at the present moment and—

A loud bang interrupts her thoughts, and she twists her head to face the door where none other than the shaggy haired waiter from earlier comes ambling through the door.

They stare at each other for a long moment, obviously he had not expected anyone else up here and she had never even taken it into consideration.

He breaks eye contact first and turns to shut the metal door behind him with a creaking thud, taking a few steps closer to her.

"Hey," he starts hesitantly, sweeping his eyes over her figure, not ogling, just apprising and Jade doesn't know if the fact bothers her or not, "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

She thinks he might.

"_No_," she answers brusquely, walking further away from him and closer to the heavy concrete wall surrounding the sides of the roof. She brushes the silky soft the pads of her fingertips over the rough surface there, immediately breaking skin, "You don't."

"Well you look familiar," he offers, stepping a little closer, hands shoved deeply into the pockets of his black slacks. He's taken the vest off and now he's only in a white cheaply made dress shirt with some of the buttons mismatched. Jade can't understand for the life of her why it should look so good on him. "Anyways," he stops a few feet beside her, holding out his hand, "I'm Beck Oliver."

Jade raises an eyebrow at the offered hand, long tanned digits and slightly pinked fingernails. His palm, she is somehow positive, will be very soft; but the tips of his fingers callous to the touch.

She turns up her nose at it, in manner that would no doubt do her mother proud and walks further over to the cement railing lining the roof.

"Jade West." She mutters, and if he's offended by her very obvious brush off, her certainly doesn't show it. Just the opposite, in fact. The boy in questioned seemed to have an air of easiness to him, a permanently hunched countenance as if he went through life not caring about much. His whole demeanor seemed to be shrouded perhaps, with a small layer of barely-concealed arrogance. But Jade figures, taking in the length of his eyelashes and prominence of his chin, maybe she could give him that.

"West? Now I know I've heard that name before."

She sneers at him, still turned away so she's not even sure if he sees it.

"Of course you have," she answers bitterly, "Everyone has."

"Your family is what, the biggest rare gem manufacturers in the west coast since—"

"Tiffany's yeah."

Jade sucks her cheeks in and glares out across the surrounding rooftops. Up this high, the music, the hustle and bustle of human beings has been muted to a pleasant buzzing and she can almost hear every breath he takes in and out.

"You're name's super appropriate then."

Jade whips around to face him, baring her teeth like an animal. "Like with everything else," she seethes, hating how comfortably he leans against the wall beside her, "I didn't have much of a choice in the matter."

Beck snorts, flips some hair away from his face and crosses his arms over his chest, "No one gets a say in their name," he says, smiling like he can see right through her. He lowers his eyes then and speaks into the wall propping him up, sounding almost apologetic, "I've seen the news stories, though. You're mom's a real hard-ass, huh?"

"For her, that's a term of endearment." Jade answers easily, and he lifts his head up to meet her eyes again, grinning full-lipped.

The smiles makes Jade feel uncomfortable, feel vulnerable, she ignores the sweeping flutter in her belly and glares over the edge of the roof. They're so far up; she can't even make out the pavement below them, and it seems to her as if she's standing on a precipice, emotional or otherwise, suspended a million feet above herself.

"I swear I know you," Beck breathes from beside her, "It's been a while probably, but I know that I know—"

"Shut up," Jade demands, ignoring him and leaning out further. She feels nervous, flighty; all of a sudden if feels as if little invisible needles are poking her all over her arms, making fat goose pimples erupt. She shivers and exhales raggedly.

"Hey," Beck calls, and somehow it seems as if it's from very far away, "Are you okay?"

She peers over the edge of the roof, and the height is next to dizzying. Jade has always liked things like that though, things that got her blood racing, heart pumping, so she stands on the tips of her toes and leans out further, until she's practicality balanced against the flat edge on her stomach.

"What if I jump?" she asks in a murmur of a voice, eyes half lidded and staring at the black depths below. It would be a nice fall, she is sure, long and dark with her dress and hair whipping—a dramatic climax, and a welcome end.

She turns her head very slightly to look at Beck, and is only marginally surprised to see he doesn't look alarmed. Still, he takes a step closer to her.

"That," he mutters back, quietly and thoughtfully, like he is measuring the weight of his words and somehow Jade appreciates that very much, "Wouldn't do anything."

He takes another step closer and then another, until he is flush right beside her and grips her softly on her upper arm—neither pulling her back nor pushing her forward—giving her a choice.

"It wouldn't punish your mother," he continues softly, eyes locking with hers and there is a quiet sort seriousness in them. His eyelashes tangle together at the corners and there are many crinkles there from a life of too much laughter and Jade can't understand exactly why, but she has a sudden urge to desperately, desperately know what makes a boy like this laugh. "And it wouldn't punish you."

Jade closes her eyes tight against his words, and makes her body arc forward. His fingers do not slacken, and neither do they tighten, there is nothing but the soft pressure of his warm hand to remind her that he is _there_, that he will be there no matter what option she chooses and Jade is so profoundly touched by this gesture, she cannot contain the harsh shudder racks her entire body and slips out of her throat.

She pushes herself away from the edge, back down to the solid ground of the rooftop and shakes his fingers away from her.

"Don't pretend to know me," she hisses, glaring at him. He doesn't look bothered at all, and it infuriates her. "Don't pretend you know what it's like being _me_."

The corners of his lips rise up even higher, it looks like mockery, Jade thinks, looks like derision. He flicks his hands back into his pockets and leans his weight back against the wall.

"Well I'm sure it's very difficult being you."

"Screw you," she hisses, feeling irrationally angry, despite the fact that the smirking boy in front of her may very well be the reason she's still currently breathing, "Shouldn't you be waiting tables or something?"

The insult doesn't seem to bother him either, but Jade is somehow sure she isn't imagining the sudden hardening of his jawline. He shrugs, a full-bodied gesture, and looks away from her, "You really haven't changed at all, Jade."

"Shut up," she hisses, stepping away from him, "You don't know me."

He meets her eyes again and smiles very slightly, looks almost sad as he walks towards her and reaches out for her hand.

"Let _go_ of me," Jade demands, trying to twist away from him, but he tightens his grip and grabs her other wrist with his free hand.

He pulls her closer and holds her hands to his chest, and Jade frowns at that, scowls at the way his scent washes over her, making her feel calmer than she has all night. She tries to pull away from him again, but he isn't letting her—he holds her tight and before she has the chance to curse him and his linage to the depths of hell, he presses his mouth to hers; feather light.

There is something extraordinarily sobering about that kiss.

Jade thinks about all the ways she's been kissed: all the heat and passion and fire, the burning hunger of desire that would claw up her ribcage, the type that swirls pooled heat into the pit of her belly and Jade compares those wild whirlwinds of emotion to this kiss with this waiter.

The point is not to cajole, Jade realizes, moving her mouth experimentally over his, parting her lips very slightly, the point is not to stroke a fire or start something bigger.

This kiss is nothing like that; it has a much greater meaning and Jade feels the significance with every nip of his lips.

Here is the truth she has been denying herself:

Jade knows him.

She _knows_ him.

Jade remembers him more severely than she remembers any others. He was in her improv class, her music appreciation class, had the transparent locker down the hall from hers and the habit of wearing heavy green army jackets in the dead of winter. He dated half the girls in their grade and liked burritos for lunch and he always got close to the lead role in plays and sometimes when they would do a scene together, he'd catch her eye in such way and she would feel like she was home, like she could breathe, like life was worth it.

And Jade had kissed him—once, twice, maybe twelve times. Once behind the stage after a remake of _Annie_ and thrice in the deserted janitor's closet down the hall from her locker, once for a method acting scene for Sikowitz and once in the middle of class when he was sitting in the seat beside hers and his lips looked so inviting and she'd just done it and he'd responded and the whole class turned to watch them.

She remembers him, knows him, and he was risky back then—back when her mother was always on her case about making sure singing was just a hobby, back when she'd curl her fingers around his extra tight and somehow he would just know and he'd take her for long drives to the beach in his rusted pickup truck and sometimes she'd get on the hood and scream and scream and scream just to stop herself from crying and he'd let her and when she was done he'd tuck her under his arm and lay them down in the back and roll her hair around his index finger and sing soft lullabies under his breath and she could never understand the words, not completely, but they always sounded like they could save her: back then back then back then.

But now in the skin of a full-grown man, in the skin of someone who has been there and done that, someone who is wise from experience rather than from warnings, he is so dauntingly dangerous Jade feels her entire body go rigid.

She comes up for air.

Beck's eyes are hooded, sooty, and Jade sees herself reflected in their deep depths, frightened and gasping for air.

She stumbles away from him.

"Jade," he calls softly, reaching out for her, and it feels too much like the past, tastes too bitter and preventable like memories she's tried so hard to bury and she shakes her head at him.

"I _can't_," she insists agitatedly, even as she takes a step forward, even as she reaches her fingers out to brush his, "I can't, I can't." Like a mantra, like a prayer, because this choice isn't hers, has never been hers.

He nods like he understands, and his hair flops easily into his eyes. His build is slim and slender, slouched and elongated, and as the wind picks up around him unsettling the fabric of his shirt and making his hair stand on end, he looks like he could blow away with it.

But somehow, as Jade curls her hand around his, twists their fingers together until they are entwined, she sees him like he could save her whole world.

"Come here," He pulls her closer, cradles her against the solidity of his chest and Jade can hear the unsteady thumping of his heart from deep inside of him. It's like she's underwater, like wind is roaring through her ears as he kiss her again; again and again and again, across her eyelids and over her brow bone, down the slope of her nose and back again.

"This can't happen again," she whispers at one point, lips ghosting over the shell of his ear, nudging the cartilage there with her nose, in what could only be called a nuzzle, "It can't. I can't."

He shushes her, presses a kiss to her forehead, "Let's get out of here," he says and her mind is screaming _no-no-no_ in fifteen different languages over and over, but her feet move forward and her head nods yes and her fingers tangle with his. It's like a force outside of herself, and like so much else in her life, this doesn't seem to be in her control. But for the first time ever, Jade is okay with that.

He leads her down the staircase, her dress billowing behind her and heels still clacking, but they sound happier somehow, lighter somehow, like they have the capacity to easily lift her up into the air.

"Wait," she stops him just before they hit the landing, frowning at the finely dressed people milling around.

"What is it?" He turns to face her and Jade can't help but be floored by his eyes, round and brown and slanted with curiosity, thick black eyelashes framing them; eyes that see rather than look:

"I can't go back like this," she manages after she collects herself, her heart is still hammering more erratically than she'd consider healthy, and she feels flushed and nervous, "My mother, her friends," Jade glances down at their entwined fingers against her will. She knows doing so would give the full explanation of what she's trying to convey without actually having to say it, but she also knows how much the gesture would hurt him.

He understands in an instant.

"Right," he starts, completely breaking eye contact with her and releasing her hand. Jade hates herself for the way she feels in the moments right after, all of a sudden abandoned and floating away again, like she needed him to keep her grounded.

"I'll just meet you around front," he says easily, shrugging and taking the last step off the stairwell. He seems totally okay with the decision, but Jade knew him once and thinks she may know him still, and somehow it occurs to her that this is some sort of test, and the choice she makes right at this moment would determine just what lies ahead for Beck and Jade.

She darts out without realizing exactly what she's doing, steps off the landing so quickly the point of her sharp stiletto heel catches the flared edge of her dress and tears. It's Versace, costs more than most people make in three months, but Jade can't find it in herself to care. She reaches out with a grappling hand and catches three of his fingers, the middle three, and tangles them with her own.

Her turns to face her then, staring at their almost-accidental hand holding, the stark whiteness of her skin contrasting beautifully with the tanned russet of his, and he meets her eyes, gives her half of a crooked smile and leans in, pressing a kiss to her temple.

Jade closes her eyes the second his lips meet her skin, but she can hear the tense whispers start up all around her. They're still in the grand hallway, but it must be past midnight by now and people were heading home. She catches her name, shocked and whispered, and when he pulls away to stare at her, telling her with honest eyes that the next step is totally her call, she simply squares her shoulders and grips his hand firmly in her own, leading the two of them out the same way she came in.

"You sure?" He mutters from the corner of his lips, lagging slightly behind her as people gape openly at their entwined fingers.

"Shut up," she advices tersely, and the second she hears him chuckle lightly from behind her, it's like all her bones suddenly uncoil, she relaxes her shoulders and slows her stride enough to let him catch up with her, and they exit the grand hotel linked firmly together.

* * *

When she'd first entered his apartment she'd been more than a little put off by the clothing discarded all over and the empty Chinese food containers littering the floor.

"Hey, I didn't expect company," he defends and Jade wants to make a snarky comment but he pulls out a lukewarm bottle of grey goose so settles herself onto his couch with just less than a grimace.

They drink for hours it feels like, drink and kiss and drink and kiss, and Jade wonders way back in the deepest recesses of her mind, how many ways her mother would kill her the next day. This, Jade figures, fisting her hands in his hair and pulling him closer, whining as he scrapes his teeth along the line of her neck, this is just for tonight. Beck and Jade, they had history, and even girls like her were allowed to bottom-feed once in a while.

It would never work between them anyway, she convinces herself, sighing as he settles his weight atop hers, two different worlds. She'd never make him happy and he'd never be enough for her.

Beck pulls back for air.

"Come back here, idiot," Jade grumbles, but he just smirks good-naturedly, and sits up, settles back nearly spineless against the couch, as if his bones could not bear to hold him a moment longer.

"You've gotten _lazy_," Jade teases, tone mischievous as she sits up as well, "You constantly look a second away from collapsing."

"That's because I _am_ a second away from collapsing," he insists just as playful. He rummages in his pockets for a second and withdraws a pack of cigarettes, offering her one.

"I quit," she says on instinct, and when he raises his eyebrows in surprise and mockery, she feels a flush of anger work its way up to her cheeks.

"You'll get lung cancer," she deadpans, but Beck just shrugs.

"We're all gonna die someday, in some way." He reminds her, but tosses the unused pack behind the couch without taking one all the same.

"Ah well," he allows, stretching momentarily, and fixing her with a lazy smile, "These are not what I'd call my glory days anyway."

"Yeah," Jade agrees after a moment, looking across his messy apartment and thinking of the huge flawless place she calls her own, "Me neither."

"Now high school," he murmurs, "High school was awesome."

Jade can't help but internally agree. The way her life had veered since then was ridiculous. Her seventeen-year-old self would not have even recognized the woman she'd become, private jets and meetings in Manhattan, her own summer house with three separate driveways.

"Do you…" Her voice is thick, hoarse, scraggly like her throat can't remember how to work, "Do you miss it? High school, I mean."

He is quiet, is thoughtful. He drums long, slim fingers over the neck of the bottle before he takes a quick swing, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sets it down on the table with a muted thud.

"Yeah." He sounds old, she realizes, old like he's lived too many years and it makes her feel strange. There's a churning in her stomach and a tear in her dress and she wishes she had a cigarette.

Her throat is bone dry, but she swallows against it as she asks, "What do you miss the most about it?"

Jade can remember. She remembers almost never coming home, singing and acting and ruining people's lives. She remembers huge productions, plays she wrote and ones she didn't; audience members and spotlights and shiny microphones glinting like promises, glinting like dreams—the ones that actually come true.

"Everything." He mutters in a rush of a voice, and Jade nods, agrees, slides across the length separating them and rests her head in the crook of his neck.

They lay there for a long moment, and Jade can feel herself drifting off, drifting away, can feel herself changing somehow but she doesn't know how or why and she hasn't even decided whether she likes or not. She feels drunk but not really, his body is solid below her head, and she can feel the steady thump of is heartbeat like a promise beneath the palm of her hand.

"You."

"What?" she raises her eyes to meet his, and he looks sober and sorry, like he's apologizing for himself.

"I missed you most."

They are encroaching on very dangerous territory—years that have passed too long ago and times they can't have back. She is heir to a throne, a billionaire's daughter, has a life full and set up for her already and how many people can say that? How many people get an entire and secure future handed to them on a silver platter and how many people would turn that down? This means something, Jade knows, her next sentence would mean something: should I stay or should I go.

She doesn't even know who she is anymore.

Maybe she never did.

Maybe she could find out.

She purses her lips and presses a suctioned kiss to his exposed collarbone, shuddering as he yields beneath her.

His hair is shabby and his eyes remind her of the things she can't have.

He is the most dangerous creature in the world.

"I missed you most too."

.

_In which I try to get back into the swing of writing Beck/Jade and fall flat. I feel so incredibly _awkward_ about this it's borderline pathetic. _

_Tell me what you think?_


End file.
